3 act breakdown of "Meet the Robinsons"

Let's look at one of my favorite movies, the inventive and energetic Disney animation, Meet the Robinsons (2007).

While overall quite a lot of fun, with a strong emotopnal theme, terrific music and memorable visuals, IMHO the film is complicated by too many subplots that don't contribute to the emotional core of the story. The description below skips a lot of these subplots. For a sequence breakdown that includes these details, see the blog post by Kirby Kirby Marshall-Collins, From Okay, But: A “Meet the Robinsons" Scene-by-Scene Breakdown. Despite these issues with subplots (which are IMHO relatively minor flaws in the story-line, but others may disagree), this is still one of my favorite movies.

The breakdown below follows the O'Bannon model [OL12], emphasizing the protagonist's Dramatic Problem arising from the Inciting Incident and the Point of No Return.

Note: The film goes back and forth in time using both flashbacks and a time machine. This in itself presents it's own set of plot problems which I'm also going to ignore.

Act 1: The Conflict.

Our protagonist Lewis (later renamed Cornelius) is 12, an energetic, science prodigy, and apiring inventor who's so far has spend his life in an orphanage. His roommate is Goob, another orphan who loves baseball.

So many potential adoptive parents have rejected him, Lewis is convinced that no one wants him. Mildred (voiced by the awesome Angela Bassett), the house mom of the orphanage, counters that they don’t know that; maybe his mom just couldn’t keep him. Lewis was the only one who saw her, so he decides to build an invention, his Mind Scanner, to look into the past and find his mom.

Lewis works on his Mind Scanner over months, keeping poor Goob up most nights building it. Finally, it’s the day of the InventCo-sponsored science fair. Goob can hardly stay awake but has an important event as well, a baseball game (he plays outfield). In fact, Goob falls asleep in the outfield and is, in fact, hit in the head by an easily caught ball. Because of that, they lose the game and his teammates are mad at him. Goob blames it all on Lewis, vowing revenge. Goob goes up hating Lewis.

At the science fair, an InventCo scientist, Mrs Lucille Krunklehorn (voiced by the legendary Laurie Metcalf) is a judge. Lucille's husband Bud will be important later but is not shown until later. (Bud and Lucille will later adopt Lewis/Cornelius.) Lewis barely notices young Franny, who has entered trained frogs into the science competition. (Lewis will later marry Franny the frog trainer.)

Lewis sets up his Mind Scanner machine. From the future, Bowler Hat Guy (BHG), an older and very disgruntled version of Goob, has arrived using a stolen Time Machine. Goob/BHG wants to steal Lewis' invention because he hates Lewis. Lewis' future 13-year old son Wilber follows BHG into the past in another Time Machine to try to stop him. (In this future, there are only two such Time Machines and the stolen Time Machine was Wilber's responsibility.)

In some sense, this defines BHG/Goob as the antagonist. This can also be regarded as the inciting event.

After BHG/Goob steals the Mind Scanner and returns to the future, Lewis is devastated. Wilber tells Lewis he's from the future and has a Time Machine. Lewis doesn't believe him. To prove it, Wilber tosses Lewis into his Time Machine and they fly away.

While traveling to the future, Lewis realizes he doesn't need a Mind Scanner, he can just use the Time Machine to see his mom. Wilber and he get into a fight over this and they crash the Time Machine in Wilber's front yard. Wilbur wants Lewis to fix the machine. Lewis bargains that if he fixes the time machine, Wilbur will take him back to see his mom. Wilbur agrees.

This is the Lock in.

Act 2: The Conflict intensifies.

Bowler Hat Guy attempts to pass off the Memory Scanner as his own at InventCo, but the CEO says he "hasn’t thought this through." (A recurring joke.) He can’t even figure out how to turn it on. They throw him out the doors of InventCo HQ.

Wilbur and Lewis push their broken machine into the garage. Even though Lewis keeps failing, Wilbur simply says, "Keep moving forward," his dad’s motto. Also, based on an actual quote:

We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths. -- Walt Disney

Bowler Hat Guy arrives outside, undetected. BHG uses a robotic hat to control Frankie, leader of Frannie's frogs. Frankie approaches the table to get Lewis, but he can’t capture him since he’s too small. Frankie warns BHG hasn’t thought this through. (Recurring joke 2.)

This failing, BHG (again using a robot hat) decides to get a dinosaur, a life-sized T-Rex, to get Lewis. The Robinsons band together to save Lewis from the T-Rex. T-Rex corners Lewis outside, but "big head and tiny arms" means that it can't grab Lewis. T-Rex warns BHG hasn’t thought this through. (Recurring joke 3.)

Franny and the other Robinsons invite Lewis to join their family. He's elated. Wilbur confesses the truth about the Time Machines. Realizing now who Lewis really is, they decide he needs to go back to his time and life his life.

Unfortunately, before this can happen, BHG/Goob captures Lewis. He offers to take Lewis to see his mom if Lewis fixes the Memory Scanner. Lewis fixes his Memory Scanner and learns BHG is Goob in the future. Lewis learns disgruntled future Goob knew just the moment to go back to, so as to ruin Lewis' life. Lewis tells BHG he's sorry about the baseball game and that if he’d let go of the past and kept "moving forward" his life would’ve turned out better. BHG would rather blame Lewis. (This also establishes part of Lewis' character arc.)

Done with Lewis, BHG takes Lewis to the now empty orphanage building (still in the future) and dumps tied up Lewis on the roof of the orphanage. Wilber recovers Lewis from BHG, stealing back the Mind Scanner as well. They almost make it back to the Robinson home when BHG/Goob catches up to them and takes back the Mind Scanner. BHG tries to remarket the working Mind Scanner to InventCo. BHG shows the scanner and signs the paperwork with the InventCo executives. This changes the future, causing Wilber to stop existing.

Before Wilber disappears, he tells Lewis that it's up to him - he must fix the Time Machine in the garage and go back to the science fair and stop BHG from originally stealing the Mind Scanner.

The world is darker. Lewis rushes into the Robinson garage. No one is there. The only thing there is a screen that shows what happened in the new dystopian future.

This is the Point of No Return.

Act 3: The Resolution.

Lewis scrambles to fix the machine, as the world gets darker and darker. Lewis goes back to the past, not to his birth mom but to the InventCo-sponsored science fair to stop BHG from taking his Mind Scanner.

Lewis stops on his way to the science fair to wake up Goob at the baseball game, who is sleeping in the outfield. Goob wakes up just in time to catch the ball and save the game. Everybody cheers for him!

At the science fair, Lewis pleads for one more chance. Lucille whispers a date to Lewis to plug in. The memory scanner works perfectly, showing her wedding to Bud, who has just arrived at the fair to drive Lucille home. A frog lands on Lewis, and Franny and Lewis finally notice each other. She asks if he thinks she’s crazy for training frogs to sing. He says no, and it's love at first sight.

Lucille and Bud love Lewis and decide to adopt him, but rename him "Cornelius." They move Cornelius into their house and show him what room will be the lab.

The emotional ending is accentuated by music from Little Wonders by singer/songwriter Rob Thomas.

Bibliography:
[OL12]Dan O'Bannon and Matt Lohr, Dan O'Bannon's guide to screenplay structure, Michael Wiese Productions, 2012.

Deemer's book Screenwright - a review

Charles Deemer wrote a 1998 book titled Screenwright: the craft of screenwriting. Last time I checked, lots of compied were available used at low cost. Then, in 2013, he revised it a bit as a hypertext e-book, but as a collection of html pages, not a hypertext pdf. Moreover, he posted it free online: hypertext Screenwright.

I like this version for several reasons, but the main one is that's it's the only free, detailed discussion of screenwriting from an expert. His experience is detailed in his online resume and online biography. At this point, you the reader is thinking "hurry up and describe his system so I can get on with my day." Patience!

Another thing I like about his book: he doesn't advocate one system or another. He does present several systems, and spends a good amount of time devoted to the beginning writer exploring their own writing system. Are you a "tree person" (meaning basically you like to outline first) or a "forest person" (creation is discovery)? He even gives a "writing method preference test". Besides that, he does spend time discussing several methods. He discusses in some detail Syd Field's "3-act paradigm":

• The hook
• The complication
• The hero's call to action
• First act plot point, leading to the
• Hero's goal
• Midpoint plot point
• Act two plot point
• Hero's new goal, leading to the
• Climax and resolution

He gives numerous examples of analysis and break-downs of dynamic structure of films using this paradigm, from Chinatown to True Lies. Deemer also briefly looks at some "spin-offs" by people such as Dave Trottier "6-events paradigm" (catalyst, big event, pinch, crisis, showdown, realization), and Chris Vogel's Hero's journey.

There's lots of details on the writing process, with encouragement and helpful advice on each stage of the process.

For more details, the table of contents is at this link. Check it out!